“‘Business news has been more sort of leading edge because I think the information is more valuable to the audience,’ said Bruce Leslie, publisher and editor of YourMississaugaBiz. ‘If we can do stories on a company’s competitors or business environment, public policy that affects business, then that becomes important to them and it becomes valuable and they’re willing to pay.’

“The sites seem to be modeled on AllNovaScotia.com, a Halifax-based business site that launched in 2001 with a hard pay wall and a subscription price of $20 a month. The site was profitable immediately, and today generates roughly $2 million in revenues a year and employs 11 full-time journalists. Former managing editor of AllNovaScotia Kevin Cox seems skeptical of the Torstar experiments.”

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.